The Varieties Of Man
Seem To Act On Each Other In The Same Way As Different Species
Of Animals - The Stronger Always Extirpating The Weaker.
It
was melancholy at New Zealand to hear the fine energetic
natives saying that they knew the land was doomed to pass
from their children.
Every one has heard of the inexplicable
reduction of the population in the beautiful and healthy island
of Tahiti since the date of Captain Cook's voyages: although
in that case we might have expected that it would have been
increased; for infanticide, which formerly prevailed to so
extraordinary a degree, has ceased; profligacy has greatly
diminished, and the murderous wars become less frequent.
The Rev. J. Williams, in his interesting work, [2] says, that
the first intercourse between natives and Europeans, "is
invariably attended with the introduction of fever, dysentery,
or some other disease, which carries off numbers of the people."
Again he affirms, "It is certainly a fact, which cannot
be controverted, that most of the diseases which have raged
in the islands during my residence there, have been introduced
by ships; [3] and what renders this fact remarkable is,
that there might be no appearance of disease among the crew
of the ship which conveyed this destructive importation."
This statement is not quite so extraordinary as it at first
appears; for several cases are on record of the most malignant
fevers having broken out, although the parties themselves,
who were the cause, were not affected. In the early
part of the reign of George III., a prisoner who had been
confined in a dungeon, was taken in a coach with four constables
before a magistrate; and although the man himself
was not ill, the four constables died from a short putrid
fever; but the contagion extended to no others. From these
facts it would almost appear as if the effluvium of one set
of men shut up for some time together was poisonous when
inhaled by others; and possibly more so, if the men be of
different races. Mysterious as this circumstance appears to
be, it is not more surprising than that the body of one's
fellow-creature, directly after death, and before putrefaction
has commenced, should often be of so deleterious a quality,
that the mere puncture from an instrument used in its
dissection, should prove fatal.
17th. - Early in the morning we passed the Nepean in a
ferry-boat. The river, although at this spot both broad and
deep, had a very small body of running water. Having
crossed a low piece of land on the opposite side, we reached
the slope of the Blue Mountains. The ascent is not steep,
the road having been cut with much care on the side of a
sandstone cliff. On the summit an almost level plain extends,
which, rising imperceptibly to the westward, at last attains
a height of more than 3000 feet. From so grand a title as
Blue Mountains, and from their absolute altitude, I expected
to have seen a bold chain of mountains crossing the country;
but instead of this, a sloping plain presents merely an
inconsiderable front to the low land near the coast.
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